Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to optical imaging and assessment of tong cassette positioning devices for oil and gas rig equipment.
In an oil and gas rig environment, multiple operations may be performed simultaneously or in a fast sequence, wherein multiple parameters may need to be checked and/or validated in a short period of time. Sometimes gathering data about the parameters may require using multiple different sensors. For example, two different sensors and pressure switches may be used to identify functions or tool status such as tong doors (open/close) and back-up doors (open/close). When multiple different sensors are used to operate a tool (e.g., a casing tong, a tubing tong, an iron roughneck, a riser tong, etc.), there is an increased probability of malfunction of any of the sensors leading to malfunction of the tool. The costs associated with acquisition, maintenance, and/or troubleshooting of these sensors may also be problematic in conjunction with the downtime caused to the customer.
Sometimes gathering data about the parameters may expose rig personnel to hazardous areas. During operations such as rig-up or rig-down of equipment, rig personnel may be exposed to safety risks. However, such operations may be necessary to completely remove or install equipment on the rig. These operations are commonly time consuming and risky to rig personnel. For example, for tong cassette rig-up, the tong cassette may be brought to the rig floor using a rig crane. If the tong cassette is inside a tray, it may be lifted out of the tray and manually installed on the positioning device using a tugger line. Rig personnel may then align the tong cassette. Once the tong cassette is hanging from the positioning device, locking pins are placed and power lines are connected for tong cassette operation. The tugger line may be disconnected from tool, and the empty tray may be removed from the rig floor. The reverse process may be required to rig-down the tong cassette from the positioning device. These processes involve considerable intervention of rig personnel performing many different operations or steps requiring high level of attention and expertise.
During drilling and casing running operations, make-up and/or break-out pipe connections may be required. This may be accomplished by using an iron roughneck or tong with a back-up that is positioned in the well center by a positioning device. The same positioning device is commonly used for drilling and running casing—only the tool installed in the positioning device is interchanged depending on the operation to be performed. Changing operations may require removing the tong cassette installed in the positioning device, and installing the new tong cassette to run the subsequent operation. This activity is time consuming and can introduce safety hazards to rig personnel. Usually, to rig-down the tong cassette, a hoisting line may be connected, and locking pins may be manually removed from the positioning device. The tong cassette may be manually placed on a tray and removed from the rig floor. The reverse operation is performed to install a new tong cassette in the positioning device. Due to the size and the weight of the tong and wellbore tools, the tong on a positioning device may swing or tilt during tool transfer or tool operation. Once the new tong cassette is installed in the positioning device, certain parameters may be manually input in the torque monitoring system to specify the type of tong cassette installed, load cell range, type of turns counter, handle length, pipe size, thread type, pipe grade, optimum torque, shoulder torque, etc. Manually inputting a large number of parameters risks human errors that can cause a set of data to be invalid, and thereby risk malfunction or operation failure.
Also, it is common to visually inspect the tool before it is placed in operation. Visual checks including size of jaws installed on tong and back-up is often carried by an operator. The jaw size installed may be matched to the pipe size to be made-up or broken-out. Cross checks may be run between the operator visual check for jaw size and the pipe size selected in the torque monitoring system. It may be required to check the actual pipe size as well so all parameters may be matched before performing the job. Accuracy of gathering and communicating the information may be subject to human error, and recording of firsthand information is not available for further review.
Once all the tool parameters have been introduced in the system, the tong cassette is ready for operation.
It would be beneficial to accurately gather, communicate, and record information for real-time operations and for review over time.